Thursday, February 18, 2016

Barring some sort of cataclysm, Donald Trump is going to easily win Saturday's Republican presidential primary in South Carolina. It would be his second straight large victory out of three contests so far in the presidential contest. In the other -- the Iowa caucuses -- Trump got the second most votes of any Republican candidate ever, but he finished second behind the guy who got the most votes in the history of the caucuses: Ted Cruz. Three days after the South Carolina vote, the race will move to Nevada where a poll released on Wednesday showed Trump ahead by almost 30 points. Then comes the March 1 "SEC" primary, when voters in 13 states across the country — including six Southern states — vote. Polling puts Trump first in most, if not all, of those states.

If Trump wins SC, he is virtually certain to have won more than 50% of all delegates allocated in IA/NH/SC—may be as much as 65%.

— Taniel (@Taniel) February 18, 2016

All of which raises a simple but profound question: Why isn't Trump being covered as the overwhelming favorite to be the Republican nominee?

Let's just say upfront, that it's not written in stone that Trump is going to win. Polls aren't elections and he could lose in the gothic fever swamps of South Carolina. (They've got a different way of doing things down there ...) But if the polls are right and people vote the way they indicate they're going to, it's more likely than not that he will win.

Cilizza thinks the reticence to admit this is because the establishment still thinks their marauding, drunken voters are going to sober up and realize that he's a pig. Clearly that isn't happening, at least not yet.

So, it's probably time for the Village press try to smooth out The Donald's rough edges. We can't have the GOP led by a crazed, neo-fascist white nationalist. That would make life among the cognoscenti very uncomfortable. The only wild card is Trump himself. He gets his strength from shocking people and he seems to know that. On the other hand, he also loves to be loved.